Acid3
Encyclopedia
Acid3 test is a web test page from the Web Standards Project
that checks a web browser
's compliance with elements of various web standards
, particularly the Document Object Model
(DOM) and JavaScript
.
If the test is successful, the results of the Acid3 test will display a gradually increasing fraction counter with colored rectangles in the background. The number of subtests passed will indicate the percentage that will be displayed on the screen. This percentage does not represent an actual percentage of conformance as the test does not really keep track of the subtests that were actually started (100 is assumed). Moreover, the browser also has to render
the page exactly as the reference page is rendered in the same browser. Like the text of the Acid2
test, the text of the Acid3 reference rendering is not a bitmap, in order to allow for certain differences in font rendering.
Acid3 was in development from April 2007, and released on 3 March 2008. The main developer was Ian Hickson
, a Google employee who also wrote the Acid2 test. Acid2 focused primarily on Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS), but this third Acid test also focuses on technologies used on modern, highly interactive websites characteristic of Web 2.0
, such as ECMAScript
and DOM Level 2. A few subtests also concern Scalable Vector Graphics
(SVG), Extensible Markup Language (XML
), and data URIs. Controversially, it includes several elements from the CSS2 recommendation that were later removed in CSS2.1, but reintroduced in World Wide Web Consortium
(W3C) CSS3 working drafts that have not made it to candidate recommendations yet.
(JavaScript
) and consists of 100 subtests in six groups called “buckets”, including four special subtests (0, 97, 98, and 99).
The compliance criteria require that the test be run with a browser's default settings. The final rendering must have a 100/100 score and must be pixel-identical with the reference rendering. On browsers designed for personal computers, the animation has to be smooth (taking no more than 33 ms for each subtest on reference hardware equivalent to a top-of-the-line Apple laptop
) as well, though slower performance on a slow device does not imply non-conformance.
To pass the test the browser must also display a generic favicon
in the browser toolbar, not the favicon image from the Acid3 web server. The Acid3 server when asked for
response code, but with image data in the body. This tests that the web browser correctly handles the 404 error code when fetching the favicon, by treating this as a failure and displaying the generic icon instead.
When the test is running, the rectangles will be added to the rendered image; the number of subtests passed in the bucket will determine the color of the rectangles.
Note that Acid3 does not display exactly how many subtests passed in a bucket. For example, 3 subtests passing and 4 subtests passing in bucket 2 would both render a black rectangle.
In order to render the test correctly, user agents need to implement the CSS 3 Text Shadows and the CSS 2.x Downloadable Fonts specifications, which are currently under consideration by W3C to be standardized. This is required as the test uses a custom TrueType
font
, called "AcidAhemTest" to cover up a 20x20 red square. Supporting Truetype fonts however is not required by the CSS specification. A browser supporting only OpenType
fonts with CFF outlines or Embedded OpenType
fonts could support the CSS standard, but fail the test in the Acid3 test. The glyph
, when rendered by the downloaded font, is just a square, made white with CSS, and thus invisible.
In addition, the test also uses Base64
encoded images, some more advanced selectors, CSS 3 color values (HSLA) as well as bogus selectors and values that should be ignored.
http://www.hixie.ch/tests/evil/acid/003/NOT_READY_PLEASE_DO_NOT_USE.html "
Despite the notice in the URL, the test received widespread attention in the web-development community. At that time only 84 subtests had been done, and on 14 January Ian Hickson announced a competition to fill in the missing 16.
The following developers contributed to the final test through this competition:
Even before its official release, Acid3's impact on browser development was dramatic. WebKit
in particular made progress; in less than a month their score rose from 60 to 87.
The test was officially released on 3 March 2008. A guide and commentary was expected to follow within a few months, but, as of March 2011, only the commentary had been released. The announcement that the test is complete means only that it is to be considered "stable enough" for actual use. A few problems and bugs were found with the test, and it was modified to fix them. On 26 March 2008—the day both Opera
and WebKit
teams announced a 100/100 score—developers of WebKit contacted main Acid3 developer Ian Hickson about a critical bug in the Acid3 that presumably may have forced a violation of the SVG 1.1 standard to pass. Hickson proceeded to fix it with the help of Cameron McCormack, member of W3C's SVG Working Group.
and WebKit
layout engines (used by Opera and Safari respectively, among others) scored 100/100 on the test and rendered the test page correctly. At the time, no browser using the Presto or WebKit layout engines passed the performance aspect of the test. On 14 March 2009, Iris Browser
1.1.4, a WebKit-based mobile browser, became the first public release of a web browser to pass Acid3, and on 7 June, iCab
4.6 for Mac OS X
was unofficially announced as the first official release of a desktop browser to pass the test; Safari
4, also based on WebKit, passed the next day, although a development version had already passed the previous September. By October, Epiphany, another WebKit-based browser, also passed. In May and June, Google Chrome 2.0 and Opera Mobile
9.7 beta displayed a score of 100/100, but did not actually pass; release versions of these browsers passed fully later in the year. Security concerns over downloadable fonts delayed Chrome from passing.
developers had been preparing for the imminent release of Firefox 3
, focusing more on stability than Acid3 success. The resulting 3.0 release consequently gained a score of 71. The performance of Firefox was improved in version 3.5
, which scores 93/100, and version 3.6
, which scores 94/100. At the time it was released, Firefox 4 scored 97/100 because it does not support SVG fonts, which were part of Acid3 at that time. Currently, Firefox 4 scores 100/100 because the SVG font tests were removed from Acid3.
According to Mozilla employee Robert O'Callahan, Firefox does not support SVG fonts because Mozilla considers WOFF a superior alternative to SVG fonts. Another Mozilla engineer Boris Zbarsky claims that the subset of the specification implemented in Webkit and Opera gives no benefits to web authors or users over WOFF, and asserts that implementing SVG Fonts fully in a web browser is hard because it was "not designed with integration with HTML in mind".
, developers of the Internet Explorer
(IE) browser, said that Acid3 does not map to the goal of Internet Explorer 8
and that IE8 would improve only some of the standards being tested by Acid3. IE8 scores 20/100, which is much worse than all relevant competitors in their versions from the test's release, and has some problems with rendering the Acid3 test page. On 18 November 2009, the Internet Explorer team posted a blog entry about the early development of Internet Explorer 9
from the PDC
presentation, showing that an internal build of the browser could score 32/100 for the Acid3 test.
, a notable web standards advocate, writes, "The real point here is that the Acid3 test isn't a broad-spectrum standards-support test. It's a showpiece, and something of a Potemkin village
at that. Which is a shame, because what's really needed right now is exhaustive test suites for specifications– XHTML, CSS, DOM, SVG."
"Implementing just enough of the standard to pass a test is disingenuous, and has nothing to do with standards compliance," argues Mozilla UX lead Alex Limi, in his article "Mythbusting: Why Firefox 4 won’t score 100 on Acid3." Limi argues that some of the tests, particularly those for SVG fonts, have no relation to real usage, and implementations in some browsers are created solely for the point of raising scores.
The following browser settings and user actions may invalidate the test:
Only stable, public releases are listed here (alpha and beta versions, for example, would not qualify).
Web Standards Project
The Web Standards Project is a group of professional web developers dedicated to disseminating and encouraging the use of the web standards recommended by the World Wide Web Consortium, along with other groups and standards bodies....
that checks a web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
's compliance with elements of various web standards
Web standards
Web standards is a general term for the formal standards and other technical specifications that define and describe aspects of the World Wide Web. In recent years, the term has been more frequently associated with the trend of endorsing a set of standardized best practices for building web sites,...
, particularly the Document Object Model
Document Object Model
The Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
(DOM) and JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
.
If the test is successful, the results of the Acid3 test will display a gradually increasing fraction counter with colored rectangles in the background. The number of subtests passed will indicate the percentage that will be displayed on the screen. This percentage does not represent an actual percentage of conformance as the test does not really keep track of the subtests that were actually started (100 is assumed). Moreover, the browser also has to render
Rendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
the page exactly as the reference page is rendered in the same browser. Like the text of the Acid2
Acid2
Acid2 is a test page published and promoted by the Web Standards Project to expose web page rendering flaws in web browsers and other applications that render HTML. Named after the acid test for gold, it was developed in the spirit of Acid1, a relatively narrow test of compliance with the Cascading...
test, the text of the Acid3 reference rendering is not a bitmap, in order to allow for certain differences in font rendering.
Acid3 was in development from April 2007, and released on 3 March 2008. The main developer was Ian Hickson
Ian Hickson
Ian 'Hixie' Hickson is the author and maintainer of the Acid2 and Acid3 tests, and the Web Applications 1.0/HTML 5 specification., Sean Michael Kerner, internetnews.com, January 25, 2008 He is known as a proponent of web standards, and has played a crucial role in the development of specifications...
, a Google employee who also wrote the Acid2 test. Acid2 focused primarily on Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
(CSS), but this third Acid test also focuses on technologies used on modern, highly interactive websites characteristic of Web 2.0
Web 2.0
The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate participatory information sharing, interoperability, user-centered design, and collaboration on the World Wide Web...
, such as ECMAScript
ECMAScript
ECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
and DOM Level 2. A few subtests also concern Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics
Scalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...
(SVG), Extensible Markup Language (XML
XML
Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....
), and data URIs. Controversially, it includes several elements from the CSS2 recommendation that were later removed in CSS2.1, but reintroduced in World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
(W3C) CSS3 working drafts that have not made it to candidate recommendations yet.
The test
The main part of Acid3 is written in ECMAScriptECMAScript
ECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
(JavaScript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
) and consists of 100 subtests in six groups called “buckets”, including four special subtests (0, 97, 98, and 99).
- Bucket 1: DOM Traversal, DOM Range, HTTP
- Bucket 2: DOM2 Core and DOM2 Events
- Bucket 3: DOM2 Views, DOM2 Style, CSS 3 selectors and Media Queries
- Bucket 4: Behavior of HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
tables and forms when manipulated by script and DOM2 HTML - Bucket 5: Tests from the Acid3 Competition (SVG, HTML, SMILSynchronized Multimedia Integration LanguageSMIL , the Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language, is a W3C recommended XML markup language for describing multimedia presentations. It defines markup for timing, layout, animations, visual transitions, and media embedding, among other things...
, UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, …) - Bucket 6: ECMAScript
The compliance criteria require that the test be run with a browser's default settings. The final rendering must have a 100/100 score and must be pixel-identical with the reference rendering. On browsers designed for personal computers, the animation has to be smooth (taking no more than 33 ms for each subtest on reference hardware equivalent to a top-of-the-line Apple laptop
MacBook Pro
The MacBook Pro is a line of Macintosh portable computers introduced in January 2006 by Apple. It replaced the PowerBook G4 and was the second model, after the iMac, to be announced in the Apple–Intel transition...
) as well, though slower performance on a slow device does not imply non-conformance.
Favicon
A favicon , also known as a shortcut icon, Web site icon, URL icon, or bookmark icon, is a file containing one small icons, most commonly 16×16 pixels, associated with a particular Web site or Web page...
in the browser toolbar, not the favicon image from the Acid3 web server. The Acid3 server when asked for
favicon.ico gives a 404HTTP 404
The 404 or Not Found error message is a HTTP standard response code indicating that the client was able to communicate with the server, but the server could not find what was requested. A 404 error should not be confused with "server not found" or similar errors, in which a connection to the...
response code, but with image data in the body. This tests that the web browser correctly handles the 404 error code when fetching the favicon, by treating this as a failure and displaying the generic icon instead.
When the test is running, the rectangles will be added to the rendered image; the number of subtests passed in the bucket will determine the color of the rectangles.
- 0 subtests passed: No rectangle shown.
- 1–5 subtests passed: Black rectangle.
- 6–10 subtests passed: Grey rectangle.
- 11–15 subtests passed: Silver rectangle.
- All 16 subtests passed: Colored rectangle (left to right: red, orange, yellow, lime, blue, purple).
Note that Acid3 does not display exactly how many subtests passed in a bucket. For example, 3 subtests passing and 4 subtests passing in bucket 2 would both render a black rectangle.
Detailed results
After the Acid3 test page is completely rendered, the capital A in the word Acid3 can be clicked to see an alert (or shift-click for a new window) explaining exactly which subtests have failed and what the error message was. In case some of the 100 tests passed but took too much time, the report includes timing results for that single test. The alert reports the total time of the whole Acid3 test.In order to render the test correctly, user agents need to implement the CSS 3 Text Shadows and the CSS 2.x Downloadable Fonts specifications, which are currently under consideration by W3C to be standardized. This is required as the test uses a custom TrueType
TrueType
TrueType is an outline font standard originally developed by Apple Computer in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe's Type 1 fonts used in PostScript...
font
Font
In typography, a font is traditionally defined as a quantity of sorts composing a complete character set of a single size and style of a particular typeface...
, called "AcidAhemTest" to cover up a 20x20 red square. Supporting Truetype fonts however is not required by the CSS specification. A browser supporting only OpenType
OpenType
OpenType is a format for scalable computer fonts. It was built on its predecessor TrueType, retaining TrueType's basic structure and adding many intricate data structures for prescribing typographic behavior...
fonts with CFF outlines or Embedded OpenType
Embedded OpenType
Embedded OpenType fonts are a compact form of OpenType fonts designed by Microsoft for use as embedded fonts on web pages. These files usually use the extension ".eot"....
fonts could support the CSS standard, but fail the test in the Acid3 test. The glyph
Glyph
A glyph is an element of writing: an individual mark on a written medium that contributes to the meaning of what is written. A glyph is made up of one or more graphemes....
, when rendered by the downloaded font, is just a square, made white with CSS, and thus invisible.
In addition, the test also uses Base64
Base64
Base64 is a group of similar encoding schemes that represent binary data in an ASCII string format by translating it into a radix-64 representation...
encoded images, some more advanced selectors, CSS 3 color values (HSLA) as well as bogus selectors and values that should be ignored.
Development and impact
Google employee Ian Hickson started working on the test in April 2007, but development progressed slowly. In December 2007, work restarted and the project received public attention on 10 January 2008, when it was mentioned in blogs by Anne van Kesteren. At the time the project resided at a URL clearly showing its experimental nature: "Despite the notice in the URL, the test received widespread attention in the web-development community. At that time only 84 subtests had been done, and on 14 January Ian Hickson announced a competition to fill in the missing 16.
The following developers contributed to the final test through this competition:
- Sylvain Pasche: subtests 66 and 67: DOM.
- David Chan: subtest 68: UTF-16/UCS-2UTF-16/UCS-2UTF-16 is a character encoding for Unicode capable of encoding 1,112,064 numbers in the Unicode code space from 0 to 0x10FFFF...
. - Simon Pieters (Opera) and Anne van Kesteren (Opera): subtest 71: HTML parsing.
- Jonas Sicking (Mozilla) and Garrett Smith: subtest 72: dynamic modification of style blocks' text nodes.
- Jonas Sicking (Mozilla): subtest 73: Nested events.
- Erik Dahlström (Opera): subtests 74 to 78: SVG and SMIL.
- Cameron McCormack (BatikBatik (software)Batik is a pure-Java library that can be used to render, generate, and manipulate SVG graphics. IBM supported the project and then donated the code to the Apache Software Foundation, where other companies and teams decided to join efforts.Batik provides a set of core modules that provide...
SVG library): subtest 79: SVG fonts.
Even before its official release, Acid3's impact on browser development was dramatic. WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
in particular made progress; in less than a month their score rose from 60 to 87.
The test was officially released on 3 March 2008. A guide and commentary was expected to follow within a few months, but, as of March 2011, only the commentary had been released. The announcement that the test is complete means only that it is to be considered "stable enough" for actual use. A few problems and bugs were found with the test, and it was modified to fix them. On 26 March 2008—the day both Opera
Opera (web browser)
Opera is a web browser and Internet suite developed by Opera Software with over 200 million users worldwide. The browser handles common Internet-related tasks such as displaying web sites, sending and receiving e-mail messages, managing contacts, chatting on IRC, downloading files via BitTorrent,...
and WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
teams announced a 100/100 score—developers of WebKit contacted main Acid3 developer Ian Hickson about a critical bug in the Acid3 that presumably may have forced a violation of the SVG 1.1 standard to pass. Hickson proceeded to fix it with the help of Cameron McCormack, member of W3C's SVG Working Group.
Presto and WebKit based browsers
By the end of March 2008, early development versions of the PrestoPresto (layout engine)
Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response...
and WebKit
WebKit
WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook...
layout engines (used by Opera and Safari respectively, among others) scored 100/100 on the test and rendered the test page correctly. At the time, no browser using the Presto or WebKit layout engines passed the performance aspect of the test. On 14 March 2009, Iris Browser
Iris Browser
Iris Browser is a web browser for Windows Mobile smartphones and personal digital assistants developed by the Torch Mobile company. The first version of Iris Browser was released in 2008. It is currently one of only three web browsers designed for portable devices which scores a 100/100 on the...
1.1.4, a WebKit-based mobile browser, became the first public release of a web browser to pass Acid3, and on 7 June, iCab
ICab
iCab is a web browser for the Macintosh by Alexander Clauss, derived from Crystal Atari Browser for Atari TOS compatible computers. It is the most recently actively developed browser for 68k-based Macintoshes that features tabbed browsing and one of a very few browsers that was still updated in...
4.6 for Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
was unofficially announced as the first official release of a desktop browser to pass the test; Safari
Safari (web browser)
Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the...
4, also based on WebKit, passed the next day, although a development version had already passed the previous September. By October, Epiphany, another WebKit-based browser, also passed. In May and June, Google Chrome 2.0 and Opera Mobile
Opera Mobile
Opera Mobile is a web browser for smartphones and PDA's developed by the Opera Software company. The first version was released in 2000 for the Psion Series 7 and netBook. Today, it is available for a variety of devices that run on Android, S60, Windows Mobile, Maemo , and MeeGo...
9.7 beta displayed a score of 100/100, but did not actually pass; release versions of these browsers passed fully later in the year. Security concerns over downloadable fonts delayed Chrome from passing.
Firefox - 1st time
At the time of Acid3's release, Mozilla FirefoxMozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers...
developers had been preparing for the imminent release of Firefox 3
Mozilla Firefox 3
Mozilla Firefox 3.0 is a version of the Firefox web browser released on June 17, 2008 by the Mozilla Corporation.Firefox 3.0 uses version 1.9 of the Gecko layout engine for displaying web pages. This version fixes many bugs, improves standard compliance, and implements many new web APIs compared to...
, focusing more on stability than Acid3 success. The resulting 3.0 release consequently gained a score of 71. The performance of Firefox was improved in version 3.5
Mozilla Firefox 3.5
Mozilla Firefox 3.5 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in June 2009, adding a variety of new features to Firefox. Version 3.5 was touted as being twice as fast as 3.0...
, which scores 93/100, and version 3.6
Mozilla Firefox 3.6
Mozilla Firefox 3.6 is a version of the Firefox web browser released in January 2010. The release's main improvement over Firefox 3.5 is improved performance . It uses the Gecko 1.9.2 engine , which improves compliance with web standards...
, which scores 94/100. At the time it was released, Firefox 4 scored 97/100 because it does not support SVG fonts, which were part of Acid3 at that time. Currently, Firefox 4 scores 100/100 because the SVG font tests were removed from Acid3.
According to Mozilla employee Robert O'Callahan, Firefox does not support SVG fonts because Mozilla considers WOFF a superior alternative to SVG fonts. Another Mozilla engineer Boris Zbarsky claims that the subset of the specification implemented in Webkit and Opera gives no benefits to web authors or users over WOFF, and asserts that implementing SVG Fonts fully in a web browser is hard because it was "not designed with integration with HTML in mind".
Internet Explorer - 1st time
MicrosoftMicrosoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
, developers of the Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer
Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year...
(IE) browser, said that Acid3 does not map to the goal of Internet Explorer 8
Internet Explorer 8
Windows Internet Explorer 8 is a web browser developed by Microsoft in the Internet Explorer browser series. The browser was released on March 19, 2009 for Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, and Windows 7. Both 32-bit and 64-bit builds are available...
and that IE8 would improve only some of the standards being tested by Acid3. IE8 scores 20/100, which is much worse than all relevant competitors in their versions from the test's release, and has some problems with rendering the Acid3 test page. On 18 November 2009, the Internet Explorer team posted a blog entry about the early development of Internet Explorer 9
Internet Explorer 9
Windows Internet Explorer 9 is the current version of the Internet Explorer web browser from Microsoft. It was released to the public on March 14, 2011 at 21:00 PDT. Internet Explorer 9 supports several CSS 3 properties, embedded ICC v2 or v4 color profiles support via Windows Color System, and...
from the PDC
Professional Developers Conference
Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference is a conference for software developers, normally Windows developers.It covers new and upcoming technology from Microsoft, and so only occurs in the years when there is something new to talk about...
presentation, showing that an internal build of the browser could score 32/100 for the Acid3 test.
Firefox - 2nd time
On 2 April 2010, Ian Hickson made minor changes to the test after Mozilla, due to privacy concerns, altered the way Gecko handles the:visited pseudo-class.Internet Explorer - 2nd time
Throughout 2010, several public Developer Previews gradually improved Internet Explorer 9's test scores from 55/100 (on 16 March) to 95/100 (as of 4 August). General Manager of the IE team Dean Hachamovich argues that striving for 100/100 on the Acid3 test isn't necessary or desirable. He claims the two Acid3 failures are on features (SVG fonts and SMIL animation) that are "in transition".Firefox and Internet Explorer - 3rd time
On September 17th, 2011, Ian Hickson announced an update to the Acid3 test. He claims that removing the parts of the test that check the implementation of features likely to be removed or heavily modified in future specifications will allow those specifications to change in the way they should, without regard to what Acid3 tests. As a result, the latest versions of Firefox and Internet Explorer achieved a score of 100/100 on Acid3.Criticism
The current iteration of the test has been criticized for being a cherry-picked collection of features that are rarely used, as well as those that are still in a W3C working draft. Eric MeyerEric Meyer
Eric A. Meyer is an American web design consultant and author. He is best known for his advocacy work on behalf of web standards, most notably Cascading Style Sheets , a technique for managing how HTML is displayed...
, a notable web standards advocate, writes, "The real point here is that the Acid3 test isn't a broad-spectrum standards-support test. It's a showpiece, and something of a Potemkin village
Potemkin village
Potemkin villages or Potyomkin villages is an idiom based on a historical myth. According to the myth, there were fake settlements purportedly erected at the direction of Russian minister Grigory Potemkin to fool Empress Catherine II during her visit to Crimea in 1787...
at that. Which is a shame, because what's really needed right now is exhaustive test suites for specifications– XHTML, CSS, DOM, SVG."
"Implementing just enough of the standard to pass a test is disingenuous, and has nothing to do with standards compliance," argues Mozilla UX lead Alex Limi, in his article "Mythbusting: Why Firefox 4 won’t score 100 on Acid3." Limi argues that some of the tests, particularly those for SVG fonts, have no relation to real usage, and implementations in some browsers are created solely for the point of raising scores.
Standards tested
Parts of the following standards are tested by Acid3:- HTTP 1.1 Protocol
- DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
Level 2 Views - HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
4.01 Strict - DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
Level 2 Traversal (subtests 1–6) - DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
Level 2 Range (subtests 7–11) - Content-Type: image/png; text/plain (subtests 14–15)
- DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
Level 2 Core (subtests 17, 21) - ECMAScriptECMAScriptECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
GCGarbage collection (computer science)In computer science, garbage collection is a form of automatic memory management. The garbage collector, or just collector, attempts to reclaim garbage, or memory occupied by objects that are no longer in use by the program...
(subtests 26–27) - DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
Level 2 Events (subtests 17, 30–32) - CSSCascading Style SheetsCascading Style Sheets is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics of a document written in a markup language...
Selectors (subtests 33–40) - DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
Level 2 Style (subtest 45) - DOMDocument Object ModelThe Document Object Model is a cross-platform and language-independent convention for representing and interacting with objects in HTML, XHTML and XML documents. Aspects of the DOM may be addressed and manipulated within the syntax of the programming language in use...
Level 2 HTML (subtest 60) - UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
5.0 UTF-16 (subtest 68) - UnicodeUnicodeUnicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
5.0 UTF-8UTF-8UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...
(subtest 70) - HTMLHTMLHyperText Markup Language is the predominant markup language for web pages. HTML elements are the basic building-blocks of webpages....
4.0 Transitional (subtest 71) - SVGScalable Vector GraphicsScalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...
1.1 (subtests 74, 78) - SMIL 2.1 (subtests 75–76)
- SVGScalable Vector GraphicsScalable Vector Graphics is a family of specifications of an XML-based file format for describing two-dimensional vector graphics, both static and dynamic . The SVG specification is an open standard that has been under development by the World Wide Web Consortium since 1999.SVG images and their...
1.1 Fonts (subtests 77, 79) - ECMAScriptECMAScriptECMAScript is the scripting language standardized by Ecma International in the ECMA-262 specification and ISO/IEC 16262. The language is widely used for client-side scripting on the web, in the form of several well-known dialects such as JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript.- History :JavaScript...
Conformance (subtests 81-96) - Data URI scheme (subtest 97)
- XHTMLXHTMLXHTML is a family of XML markup languages that mirror or extend versions of the widely-used Hypertext Markup Language , the language in which web pages are written....
1.0 Strict (subtest 98)
Passing conditions
A passing score is only considered valid if the browser's default settings were used.The following browser settings and user actions may invalidate the test:
- Zooming in or out
- Disabling images
- Applying custom fonts, colors, styles, etc.
- Having add-ons or extensions installed and enabled
- Installed and enabled User JavaScript or GreasemonkeyGreasemonkeyGreasemonkey is a Mozilla Firefox extension that allows users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to HTML web page content on the DOMContentLoaded event, which happens immediately after it is loaded in the browser .As Greasemonkey scripts are persistent, the changes made to the web...
scripts
Browsers that pass
The browsers listed here score 100/100 and have no obvious rendering problems. Note that a score of 100/100 indicates only that all the subtests produced the correct result, and does not indicate whether the rendering is correct or whether the subtests passed the performance aspect of the test.Only stable, public releases are listed here (alpha and beta versions, for example, would not qualify).
Desktop browsers
| Layout engine | Browser | Release date | Latest stable release version date | Rendering | Performance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gecko Gecko (layout engine) Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects.... |
Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox is a free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite and managed by Mozilla Corporation. , Firefox is the second most widely used browser, with approximately 25% of worldwide usage share of web browsers... 4.0 |
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| WebKit WebKit WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook... |
Google Chrome Google Chrome Google Chrome is a web browser developed by Google that uses the WebKit layout engine. It was first released as a beta version for Microsoft Windows on September 2, 2008, and the public stable release was on December 11, 2008. The name is derived from the graphical user interface frame, or... 4.0.249.78 |
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| WebKit WebKit WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook... |
Safari Safari (web browser) Safari is a web browser developed by Apple Inc. and included with the Mac OS X and iOS operating systems. First released as a public beta on January 7, 2003 on the company's Mac OS X operating system, it became Apple's default browser beginning with Mac OS X v10.3 "Panther". Safari is also the... 4.0 |
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| Presto Presto (layout engine) Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response... |
Opera 10 Opera 10 Opera 10 is a version of the Opera web browser. The initial version, 10.00, was released in September 2009.This release added a variety of new features, a new skin designed by Jon Hicks, increased standards support, and a new application icon to Opera... |
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| WebKit WebKit WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook... |
Epiphany Epiphany (web browser) Epiphany is an open source web browser for the GNOME desktop environment. The browser is a descendant of Galeon, and was created after developer disagreements about Galeon's growing complexity... 2.28.0 |
Mobile browsers
Note: For mobile browsers it is not possible to consider the "performance" portion of the test, as mobile browsers cannot be run on the reference hardware.| Layout engine | Browser | Release date | Latest stable release version date | Rendering |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| WebKit WebKit WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook... |
Bolt browser Bolt browser The BOLT Browser is a web browser for mobile phones including feature phones and smartphones that can run Java ME applications. The BOLT Browser is offered free of charge to consumers and by license to Mobile network operators and handset manufacturers... 1.6 |
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| Presto Presto (layout engine) Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response... |
Opera Mobile Opera Mobile Opera Mobile is a web browser for smartphones and PDA's developed by the Opera Software company. The first version was released in 2000 for the Psion Series 7 and netBook. Today, it is available for a variety of devices that run on Android, S60, Windows Mobile, Maemo , and MeeGo... 9.7 |
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| WebKit WebKit WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook... |
PlayBook browser BlackBerry Tablet OS BlackBerry Tablet OS is an operating system based on the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system designed to run Adobe AIR and BlackBerry WebWorks applications... |
1.0.7.3312 BlackBerry Tablet OS BlackBerry Tablet OS is an operating system based on the QNX Neutrino real-time operating system designed to run Adobe AIR and BlackBerry WebWorks applications... |
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| Gecko Gecko (layout engine) Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects.... |
Firefox Mobile 4.0 |
Browsers that do not pass
Acid3 was deliberately written in such a way that every web browser failed the test at the time of its release. Browser developers are actively working to improve test results.Desktop browsers
| Layout engine | Browser | Screenshot of current release |
|---|---|---|
| Trident Trident (layout engine) Trident is the name of the layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer.It was first introduced with the release of Internet Explorer version 4.0 in October 1997; it has been steadily upgraded and remains in use today... |
Internet Explorer Internet Explorer Windows Internet Explorer is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft and included as part of the Microsoft Windows line of operating systems, starting in 1995. It was first released as part of the add-on package Plus! for Windows 95 that year... |
100/100 but incorrect rendering (no shadow on Acid3 text) Internet Explorer 9 |
| KHTML KHTML KHTML is the HTML layout engine developed by the KDE project. It is the engine used by the Konqueror web browser. A forked version of KHTML called WebKit is used by several web browsers, among them Safari and Google Chrome... |
Konqueror Konqueror Not to be confused with the Conqueror web browser.Konqueror is a web browser and file manager that provides file-viewer functionality for file systems such as local files, files on a remote ftp server and files in a disk image. It is a core part of the KDE desktop environment... |
89/100 Konqueror 4.5.3 |
| Gecko Gecko (layout engine) Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects.... |
Camino Camino Camino is a free, open source, GUI-based Web browser based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine and specifically designed for the Mac OS X operating system... |
72/100 Camino 2.0.7 |
Mobile browsers
| Layout engine | Major browsers | Screenshot of current release |
|---|---|---|
| Trident Trident (layout engine) Trident is the name of the layout engine for the Microsoft Windows version of Internet Explorer.It was first introduced with the release of Internet Explorer version 4.0 in October 1997; it has been steadily upgraded and remains in use today... |
Internet Explorer Mobile | 100/100 but incorrect rendering Internet Explorer Mobile 9 |
| Presto Presto (layout engine) Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response... |
Opera Mini Opera Mini Opera Mini is a web browser designed primarily for mobile phones, smartphones and personal digital assistants. Until version 4 it used the Java ME platform, requiring the mobile device to run Java ME applications. From version 5 it is also available as a native application for Android, iOS, Symbian... |
98/100 Opera Mini 6.1.25577 |
| WebKit WebKit WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook... |
iOS browser | 100/100 but incorrect rendering iOS 4.3.3 |
| Android browser | 100/100 but incorrect rendering Android 4.0 | |
| BlackBerry Browser BlackBerry BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more... |
100/100 but incorrect rendering BlackBerry OS 7 | |
| Samsung Dolfin Browser | 98/100 Dolfin 2.2 / bada Bada (operating system) Bada is an operating system for mobile devices such as smartphones and tablet computers. It is developed by the Samsung Electronics. Its name is derived from " ", meaning "ocean" or "sea" in Korean... 1.2 |
|
| Nokia Browser | Test result 91/100 Symbian ^3 Symbian Symbian is a mobile operating system and computing platform designed for smartphones and currently maintained by Accenture. The Symbian platform is the successor to Symbian OS and Nokia Series 60; unlike Symbian OS, which needed an additional user interface system, Symbian includes a user... v7.3.1.37 |
|
| Skyfire | 100/100 but incorrect rendering Skyfire 2.0 | |
| webOS browser | 92/100 webOS 1.4 | |
| Iris Browser Iris Browser Iris Browser is a web browser for Windows Mobile smartphones and personal digital assistants developed by the Torch Mobile company. The first version of Iris Browser was released in 2008. It is currently one of only three web browsers designed for portable devices which scores a 100/100 on the... |
100/100 but incorrect rendering Iris Browser 1.1.4 | |
| Gecko Gecko (layout engine) Gecko is a free and open source layout engine used in many applications developed by Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla Corporation , as well as in many other open source software projects.... |
MicroB MicroB MicroB is a mobile web browser developed by Nokia for use in smartphones and mobile devices that run the Maemo operating system. The browser is Mozilla-based and uses the Gecko layout engine.... |
94/100 MicroB 1.0.4 |
Console browsers
| Layout engine | Major browsers | Screenshot of current release |
|---|---|---|
| NetFront NetFront NetFront Browser is a mobile browser for embedded devices, developed by Access Co. Ltd. of Japan, and was designed to function as an embedded browser.... |
PlayStation 3 PlayStation 3 The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles... browser |
27/100 PS3 Firmware 3.56 |
| PSP PlayStation Portable The is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004... Browser |
 11/100 NetFront 3.5 |
|
| Nintendo 3DS Nintendo 3DS The is a portable game console produced by Nintendo. The autostereoscopic device is able to project stereoscopic 3D effects without the use of 3D glasses or any additional accessories. The Nintendo 3DS features backward compatibility with Nintendo DS series software, including Nintendo DSi software... Browser |
92/100 System version 2.0.0-2U | |
| Presto Presto (layout engine) Presto is the layout engine for later versions of the Opera web browser . After several public betas and technical previews, it was released on January 28, 2003 in Opera 7 for Windows, and as of Opera 11 it is still in use. Presto is dynamic: the page or parts of it can be re-rendered in response... |
Wii Wii The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others... Internet Channel |
40/100 and browser crashes after test 21 June 2010 update |
| Nintendo DSi Browser | 59/100 |
Other browsers
| Layout engine | Major browsers | Screenshot of current release |
|---|---|---|
| Webkit WebKit WebKit is a layout engine designed to allow web browsers to render web pages. WebKit powers Google Chrome and Apple Safari and by October 2011 held over 33% of the browser market share between them. It is also used as the basis for the experimental browser included with the Amazon Kindle ebook... |
Dreamweaver Live View | 90/100 Dreamweaver CS5 |
| Second Life Second Life Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars... browser |
100/100 Second Life 2.0 | |
| Steam in-game browser | 100/100 but incorrect rendering Steam build 1515 (March 21, 2011) | |
| EVE Online EVE Online Eve Online is a video game by CCP Games. It is a player-driven, persistent-world MMORPG set in a science fiction space setting. Characters pilot customizable ships through a galaxy of over 7,500 star systems. Most star systems are connected to one or more other star systems by means of stargates... in-game browser |
100/100 but incorrect rendering EVE Online Incarna 1.1.2 (Build 292761) |
See also
- Comparison of layout enginesComparison of layout enginesThe following tables compare general and technical information for a number of web browser engines. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up to date...
- Quirks modeQuirks modeIn computing, quirks mode refers to a technique used by some web browsers for the sake of maintaining backward compatibility with web pages designed for older browsers, instead of strictly complying with W3C and IETF standards in standards mode....
- Sputnik (JavaScript conformance test)Sputnik (JavaScript conformance test)Sputnik was a JavaScript conformance test suite. The purpose of the test suite was to determine how well a JavaScript implementation adheres to the ECMA-262 specification, 5th edition, looking only at those features that were also present in the 3rd edition...